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Comment by foldr | Hacker News Reader

No, it chastises misplaced faith in it.

Can one have a misplaced faith in evidence? Once there is evidence for something, it is not merely faith - faith is conviction without evidence. The whole point of the scientific process is to re-evaluate conclusions when new evidence is presented. I suppose historians may look back and find that some of our scientific beliefs were held in spite of evidence to the contrary, or that evidence was not sought out to disprove those beliefs, but I do not see how a full discrediting of data and statistics would one day happen.

>Can one have a misplaced faith in evidence?

That's a semantic quibble which isn't really relevant to the point that Harrison is making in the rest of the quoted paragraph.

But yes, you can have misplaced faith in e.g. null hypothesis significance testing and other methods of data collection and analysis common in some of the social sciences.

My point was not that you can't have misplaced faith. But rather can you have misplaced faith in the notion of evidenced based conclusions. If your conclusions are based on evidence, then it isn't faith. It may still be wrong, but it isn't faith.

Oh, that's just a pun on 'faith'. The 'faith' in 'misplaced faith' isn't religious faith.

Can you elaborate on what you mean? What definition of "faith" do you think is meant here?

The ordinary meaning of the word 'faith', as in e.g. 'John has a misplaced faith in his own abilities'.

So belief without evidence. Do you see how it is non-sensical to then say "misplaced faith in evidence"?

That's not the definition of faith, really. Faith can mean belief and it can mean trust (often the former is an expression of the latter). What you mean is blind faith, which is pejorative. When it comes to religion (Chistianity specifically), the recorded accounts of Jesus' miracles and his resurrection function as historical evidence of his divinity.

What you describe is more like fideism.

Faith doesn't mean 'belief without evidence'. That's a Richard Dawkins talking point, not anything you'll find in a dictionary. John could have excellent evidence for his own abilities, and yet his faith in those abilities could turn out to be misplaced.

"Not anything you will find in a dictionary" is a terrible bar to base something off of: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/faith Definition 2b. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/faith definition 2.

Using faith and belief interchangeably seems disingenuous and ignores the religious context that is part of faith. Faith implies a lack of compromise, a concreteness, and unwillingness to change. Using that term to describe evidence based science, and the belief that evidence ought to be presented before a belief is held is an attempt to reduce science to dogma.

I don't know if they mean evidence in a specific sense. I think they mean misplaced faith in data in a meta sense, giving it more power to affect decisions than it should. The idea that everything can be solved by commissioning a study, acquiring data, and analyzing it. Or that "the data" becomes an unquestioning authority that you invoke.

edit: the word "Scientism" is probably closer to the meaning here; science and rationality as a belief system in itself, as opposed to tools that help us understand physical processes. Faith in these tools to supply meaning and create a better society, often to absurd levels.

The argument isn't about facts. It's about the meaning of facts, and specifically their meaning for us.

I think an example of "misplaced faith in evidence" would be along the lines of equating correlation with causation based on evidence.

I disagree with that as an example of a "misplaced faith in evidence". That is coming to the wrong conclusion due to committing a false cause logical fallacy. Drawing the wrong conclusion should not be confused with a "misplaced faith in evidence". It seems that the religious really want to use the term faith in regards to science so as to imply that scientists "stoop to their level". That argument is seemingly often made that scientists have a blind faith in science. Certainly it happens that a scientist will hold onto beliefs against evidence, will doctor evidence to confirm their belief, and will cherry pick data to prove their belief that they hold despite evidence. But those are all actions that are antithetical to the scientific process. while and endemic to religion.

The article is under the 'religion' section so it seems reasonable that the author (A religious scholar) would have some issues with a worldview based on empirical and provable evidence.

Wow, really deep thinking here. What a great demonstration of the rationality you apparently worship.

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